USC Awaits The Cavaliers and The Cavalry

If the Trojan's opener against Hawaii was a high visibility system implementation,  it would be called a 'qualified success'. Businesses love the phrase because they get to use an unambiguous word like 'success' when the actual results would have to solidify drastically to even be considered ambiguous. Coaches don't care for it much, it being their job to find the negatives, face them squarely, and eradicate them. Yes, USC got the win and yes, the Trojan offense looked more cohesive than it has in half a decade. But giving up 600 yards to the football equivalent of a club fighter does nothing to shift the discussion from NCAA sanctions or Lane Kiffin as undeserving heir to Return of the King.

Possibly the best part of the outcome for USC was the absence of any injuries. For a team with limited bodies, escaping injury free is a huge positive, only slightly tempered by the fact that the defense mitigated their injury risk by rarely engaging in solid contact. If this was by design, Lane Kiffin may well get his own Real Men of Genius commercial, as well as nasty notes from bettors giving the points. If not, then the local Home Depot better have a large supply of spackle in stock because some of those defensive holes make the doorways positively redundant.

So this week the Trojans get their chance at an Extreme Home Makeover, before a large and unusually anxious crowd. The fans won't be too concerned about Virginia, a mid-card opponent to Hawaii's tomato can, but they'll be eagerly measuring USC's defensive improvement against the Stanfords and Oregons yet to come.  

The task list for the offense is short and simple. Show us what we saw against Hawaii. Prove that it wasn't an island mirage fueled solely by an inept Warrior defense. Demonstrate that the offensive line is again dominant, that Matt Barkley has indeed made the expected freshman to sophomore jump, and that USC can run and pass with equal flair. Let oft-injured Mark Tyler get through a second game without getting nicked and let true freshman Robert Woods again play like a seasoned veteran. Have Ronald Johnson keep playing as though he never heard of discretion being the batter part of valor.   Continue to call plays as though they aren't being spit out by some random number generator appropriated from a video poker machine.

Do all this, or even most of it, and the Trojan faithful will be very pleased. At least when they have the ball.  

The defense has a lengthier laundry list after getting unexpectedly rolled in the dirt in the opener. Some of the problems, such as a ridiculous amount of youth in the secondary, are unique to this year's Trojan edition. Unfortunately, many are the same old bugaboos that have bedeviled even good USC defenses over the last five years; the inability to get consistent pressure with the front four, the startling lack of ball awareness and the resultant lack of turnovers, and the heart-rending knack for making third and long the opponent's best friend. Add in a woeful display of tackling, alternating between flailing, feeble arm efforts and roll block attempts that seemed patterned after a falling manikin, and the only question left is how Hawaii only managed 588 yards.

A lot of the USC faithful are taking comfort in it being the first game. Very true, but unless I've read my laminated schedule card wrong, it was Hawaii's first game too. They also take solace in the fact USC's defense was pretty much vanilla the entire game. Also true, but it's hard to remember a time when USC's defense wasn't vanilla from start to finish and this one melted pretty badly in the Hawaiian heat.

Tackles DaJohn Harris and Loni Fanguppo, after garnering raves throughout the off season, were almost non-existent in support of Jurrell Casey, generally making all the headway of Paul Dee trying to get through a subway turnstile. One could hardly blame Harris for a couple of offside jumps, since it seemed the only way he could get past the line of scrimmage. The combination of good defensive end penetration with tackles ditched in the aptly named neutral zone turned USC's pocket containment into a sieve and Moniz spilled all over the Trojan secondary. Add in middle line backer Devon Kennard's freakish, and in this case counter-productive, ability to get forty yards deep and tentative play by two young safeties and Monte Kiffin's Tampa Two could have easily been renamed The Big Valley.  

The young secondary largely gets a pass, which seems only fair after having given up so many themselves. It can't be easy to face Hawaii's pinball offense your first time out and USC's secondary had four starts among them, all belonging to Shareece Wright. True freshman Nickell Robey was abused all night, but it's far too early to start twisting "not worth a plugged" into a snide nickname. Still, the learning curve is daunting and with the meat of the schedule just a few weeks away the kids need a crash course on secondary play. Maybe there's a Berlitz course available on Amazon. Perhaps a few hours skeet shooting might help them identify and track flying objects.  

So USC finds themselves in the unusual posture of waiting for the cavalry to show up. There really isn't much in the way of reinforcements to send. Nick Perry should return and bring a more consistent pass rush with him and T.J. Bryant will bring a bit more experience and ball skills to the secondary, but for the most it will be the same cast that was largely panned on opening night. The home venue will help, as will the large helping of humility, and Virginia brings the sort of staid, stolid pro-style attack that the defense is comfortable with. The tackling and pursuit angles should improve after the initial shock that an actual game is different than a numbers dictated, limited contact camp. But the biggest thing pointing toward a defensive resurgence is the simple realization that a defense that constantly got the better of the USC offense in practice can not possibly be as defenseless as they seemed last week.

Fortunately for USC defense, the cavalry has been there all along. They simply have to mount up and ride.